"Game of Shadows" Contains Lies

In this age of grand schemes and book selling phenoms, along comes the "Game of Shadows" to cast a glaring light into the steroid consuming lifestyle of one Barry Bonds. But wait a second, in all of the hoopla and "we knew it!" frenzy, it appears that the authors have inserted some non-truths (maybe even some downright lies).

In an article by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Olympic track diva Gail Devers alleges that "Game of Shadows" has impuned her reputation by erroneously including her name and accounts of her life in the book. She calls it "guilt by association." Tucked away in the book in a section titled Cheat or Lose, the authors allege that Devers trained under a coach who was later found guilty of distributing performance enhancing substances. He supposedly trained her for the Olympics and she supposedly went to his 70th birthday party and gave him a plaque that read "The Greatest Track Coach of All Time." They also said that injuries kept her from competing in 5 Olympic games.

In actuality, Gail Devers never trained with this coach, never went to his birthday party, and never gave him a plaque. And she did compete in 5 Olympic games. Devers has demanded a public apology (in the form of a press release) from the authors and the book's publisher, but they refuse to do so. They did offer to give her a private apology and remove her name from future editions of the book; "Game of Shadows" has over 308,000 copies in print and the book peaked at No. 2 on The New York Times Best Sellers list.

plez sez: This story is disturbing on a number of fronts. I am not a track aficionado, but I have heard of Gail Devers, the five time Olympic gold medalist and know the story of how she battled Graves' disease. It is a shame that her name was dragged into this steroids mess (if even on the periphery) because of sloppy work by the authors of the book. I think authors are supposed to research these types of reports before writing them as fact (in the article, they claimed to have gotten this information from "American Track & Field" magazine and she never complained about the inaccuracies from that periodical).

In their zealous attempts to smear Barry Bonds, these authors have gone to great lengths to substantiate their claims with faulty and incorrect information. If this is section of the book is so wrong and so off base, it calls into question what other sections of the book are wrong and off base. Maybe the accounts of creams, gels, and injections may be factually incorrect. Maybe some of their sources lied and these authors only used information that substantiated their claims that Barry Bonds had full knowledge of his steroids use. Maybe Barry Bonds was unaware that he was using steroids.

I don't know. But it makes me wonder what else is incorrect in this book, "Game of Shadows."